


Birth

by j3ssential



Series: Set Ablaze [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Birth, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons References, Fantasy, Fire, Fire Powers, Genasi, Giving Birth, High Fantasy, Motherhood, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Fiction, Phoenixes, Science Fiction & Fantasy, fire genasi, labor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21570619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j3ssential/pseuds/j3ssential
Summary: Something new comes into the world.
Series: Set Ablaze [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554559
Kudos: 3
Collections: Wildfire





	Birth

The room was hotter than a forge. Hotter than most people could stand. But Aurenwae was not most people, and her attendant, well, her attendant wasn’t a person at all.  
The phoenix had shown up not long after Kossuth had left. They’d had their most passionate – and destructive--fight yet. Aurenwae was sitting in the middle of several acres of razed forest, still fuming. She hadn’t even known she was pregnant at the time, only that her work had been getting a lot more effective lately. That is, when she could practice it. She had just decided she wouldn’t allow Kossuth to return; god or no, he was hindering her work more than he was helping, no matter how good the sex was. When she raised her head, she had a retort ready,but it wasn’t Kossuth. The most beautiful creature Aurenwae had ever seen was regarding her with an ancient, serene gaze. Long tail feathers swept from brightest blue to deepest red, curled around a charred jut of rock just above her. Arm sized talons of rippling orange thrust the weight of the creature into the air, and wings as wide as a castle tower was tall spread to either side. Aurenwae likely should have been terrified, speared by the creatures blue-white gaze, but she had never quite had the sanity or sense to be properly afraid of anything. And the great bird had eyed her for a moment, seeming to weigh her, before it rested its giant head, ever so gently on her stomach. It had not left her side since.  
Now, the enormous wings encircled her heaving body. When the pains had first began, she had thought she was going to die. She worked with fire - she knew burns well; but she had never known heat like this. Heat pulsating from inside of her, heat that made her cry out for death. The phoenix had started singing after the first pain, and Aurenwae hadn’t hurt since. The heat came in long, soothing waves; the pain of labor still there, but no burning, nowhere near the first pains. During the labor, while the great bird sang, Aurenwae’s mind fell into an order it had never known. Gone were the chaos and madness of her usual, turbulent thoughts. Before the pains began, she had viewed the growing child in her belly with little more than mild irritation, but now, she felt something entirely new, something she had never been able to feel before – love…maternal instinct. She felt such a deep emotion for the creature stirring with in her, emotions she had no time to process or even understand as the pains grew harder and faster. She heaved and sweat and strained, all the while carefully observed by the phoenix surrounding her, singing it’s soft song.  
It seemed to take an eternity , but finally, finally, the child came out whole, bright, and burning, into her mother’s arms. So brightly she shined that Aurenwae couldn’t look for a moment, but when she did, her heart skipped a step. The child was beautiful, and whole, and perfect. Love swelled in her chest as she put the child to her chest when suddenly, the beautiful melody of the phoenix stopped. A stuttering moment and the world crashed in again – the oppressive heat, the sounds of the insects outside, her own thoughts crashing down on her like waves, drowning the love in her usual turbulence of thought. Her mind was already whirring and spinning with the implications of all she had learned to further her research during her pregnancy when the great bird heaved itself into the sky, not casting another glance at Aurenwae or the child. Two solitary feathers from the tips of its wings circled down, catching Aurenwae’s eyes as they slowly spiraled, one landing in her own outstretched hand, the other landing on the chest of the suckling child. The moment it landed, the glowing cracks in her skin dimmed slightly, the child become ever-so-slightly-cooler at her breast. Aurenwae’s mind once again picked up speed, striding inside while examining the feather in her hand, the child at her breast almost entirely forgotten already.


End file.
